Starlings hitting new site

[dhjohnson]

Good evening to All,
It's so exciting to see the surge of new scout reports. Happy to see so many birds finding their way home. It's raining here in Clayton (Archer Lodge).

We have opened our house and gourd rack. We also put up 3 natural gourds given by Mr. Johnny Riley of Bailey, NC beneath the house. We modified two of the gourds with sreh entrances with porches at or maybe 1/16th below the entrance and added clean out accesses to all three. We left one gourd with his standard 2 inch round hole with no porch but has a small water shed over the hole. Folks looking very large thick skined gourds should contact Johnny Riley. They are very very nice.

Well as soon as we opened our housing here came the starlings and sparrows. We have shot, with a pellet gun, many sparrows and have managed to knock feathers out of several starlings but no kills from 20 yards yet. They take off and then come back. That's the only gourd they can get inside. The pump air rifle is very strong so maybe they have tough hides.

I guess it may be time to try trapping. I have read several posts on traps and see that while some work for some landlords, some do not. I will need to move pretty quick because I think we might see PM's within 10 to 15 days. Please share your trapping recommendations.

[DornCounty]

this is my first season, but I have read tons of great stuff about the DIY, NB Compact trap. Plans are in the archives.

http://www.purplemartin.org/forumarchiv ... wpage4.htm

[MingjoMartins]

I use the gourd insert traps and they are wickedly effective at catching starlings. I use all SREH and leave two round hole gourd with traps inside and can catch 2 starlings at a time. LOVE EM - cheap, easy and effective!

JohnM

[LDCLSU]

I built one of the NB traps today. Took about 5 hours and is real easy to build.

[M.Stephens]

Since this is the nesting season I highly recommend these two kinds of traps.

For the sparrows I recommend finding an old trio martin house for sale and buy the Spare-O-door from the PMCA shop.
Block off all the other entrances and use one or two of these and if you can afford more put them in. You will load up on sparrows with this trap.
http://purplemartin.org/shop/product_in ... a7b944eee4

For starlings the S&S Controller is available through them to buy http://purplemartin.org/shop/product_in ... a7b944eee4

The plans for S&S Controller if you can build it yourself http://purplemartin.org/shop/product_in ... a7b944eee4

Like others said plans from other web sites to build a nest box trap for free , if you can build it your self would be my next option.


In the future you can buy the repeating traps that use bait as a lure to help controll the HS and starlings all year long.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

I have several traps, they do a good job of catching most starlings, but the sparrows are harder to catch. Even some starlings will not go into a trap. I used my pellet rifle today on a starling that did not like traps, and I was happy to eliminate it. I use every method possible, and that works good here.

[M.Stephens]

Emil I use every method too, including my 12 gauge. Very few get past me! : )

[Guest]

i use a regular mousetrap ,just set 1 or 2 in the compartment they have taken possession of and it wont take long and wham you got em.

[RC Moser]

Need to find out why you can't hit starling with pellet gun at 20 yards? I could understand ES at that distance cause it requires steady hand and consistence air rifle, but starlings shouldn't be problem. Another thing unless you hit starling in vital spot he will fly off and may die somwhere else? Usually you can hear the pellet hit the target.

If that't too far you need to get closer if you gun is not powerful enough to repeat at 20 yards. You may need to site your gun in at 20yards. Problem maybe regular sites, the gun, or old eyes.

A scope usually can be dailed in if you can mount it, adjust it, site it in, and hit a target repeatably at 20 yards. A target wood have to be size of dime to kill to kill sparrows on you get the gun to hit target size of dime 9 out ot 10 times and you now can consistently get rid of the starling and sparrows. If you can't hit target at you disired shooting distance, then you got to get closer and site the gun in at that distance.

[KathyF]

Starlings' wings and back are pretty hard, but with a sufficiently powered pellet gun, you can pierce both. I try to shoot them when they are facing me in their soft throat or abdomen area - that's a lot of space for error!

I have shot 8 starlings this week. 3 of them keeled over & died on the spot. When I hit the others, the force of the pellet caused them to backflip off the perch, but halfway to the ground they recovered and managed to fly about 30 to 40 ft into the grass before they collapsed. One guy even flew to the top of a tree, then 30 seconds later fell through the limbs and died on the ground.

All this to say, if you don't hit a vital organ on the first shot, it may take them some time to die - but they will die.

But RC makes an excellent point - practice, practice, practice and make sure everything is sited in and working.

BUT, trapping is much easier. I use the trap posted by Dorn and I LOVE it! Drill a 1.5" hole in the trap cage so that bluebirds and other desirable birds can get out of the trap quickly - you don't want a bluebird to be trapped inside the cage with an angry starling. Good luck!

[Kathy in VA]

dhjohnson, I’ll bring several traps to show you tomorrow, if you’re still planning to come to the North Carolina Purple Martin Society meeting at Courtney Rousseau’s house, 12:30pm. I don’t have very many starlings, so I don’t have a nestbox trap or S&S controller, but my most successful gourd trap has been the PMCA insert trap: http://purplemartin.org/shop/product_in ... 263a993015
I use SREH’s now, but when I first was trying to establish a colony, I had several round-holed gourds. One year, a starling bonded to a round-holed Troyer Horizontal gourd with a cling plate/tail prop, and started nest-building. I didn’t have a trap to fit that style gourd, and I’m usually not very successful with a gun (and the starlings usually fly off before I can get the window cracked to shoot), but I did have a SuperGourd and the trap shown in the link above. So one morning when the starling was actively nest-building, I removed the horizontal gourd and hung the vertical SuperGourd in its place, raised the gourd rack back up—and came inside to watch. The starling flew back to the rack, saw the funny gourd, looked at it strangely for a few minutes, but eventually flew over to the gourd, grabbed onto the entrance hole, poked his head inside, and then popped into the gourd! Bingo!

Now, I just hang that round-holed SuperGourd on the rack early in the season, in a gourd facing my house, and if a starling bonds to it and starts building a nest, I insert the trap at a time when I can stay home to monitor it, and capture it. If you have lots of starlings, I'd recommend a repeating nestbox-style trap.

Hope to see you tomorrow!
Kathy